


Silence in the Night

by Lady_Juno



Series: Dragonriders of Erebor [1]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Dragonriders, Dragons, Dwarrowdam, F/M, Fear, Female Dwarf, Mutilation, Orcs are not good at 'playing nice', Other not-nice things, Pain, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-01-26 10:33:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1685186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Juno/pseuds/Lady_Juno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story is retired.<br/><span class="u">Retired pieces</span> will not be added to. </p><p>There are those times, she liked to think they happened in every life and not just hers, when one simply must make concessions. Give a little ground. She’d never said she wouldn’t drink blood, but if she’d thought about it, she probably would have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the Depths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ISeeFire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ISeeFire/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Of Dwobbits, Dragons and Dwarves](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1579232) by [ISeeFire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ISeeFire/pseuds/ISeeFire). 



> To my readers,  
> I've actually rewritten most of the first chapter, and all of the second. I hope that it doesn't throw you off too much. :) I also hope this version of events does the story more justice.

“What’s the matter, Dwarf?” The sneering face of the orc was almost close enough to spit on. Or would have been, if she’d had any spit left. “Not thirsty?”  Disgusting or not, it was liquid, and if she refused, she’d get a beating into the bargain. And even a dwarf couldn’t survive much longer without basic necessities. Rubbing her cracked lips together, she lifted the rough cup to her mouth. The orc grabbed the base of the cup and tipped it further, sloshing the viscous red liquid all over her face and matted beard. Even as she swallowed the meager mouthful she’d managed to catch, her stomach curdled. It was thick, coating her tongue and mouth, slipping down her throat like raw meat. The taste, of copper and iron, of decay and sickness, nearly brought the stuff back up her throat again. And she thought, though there was really no way to tell, that it might have been dwarf blood.

The orc cackled and tossed the cup aside. Most captives were made slaves. Any slave that had been as much trouble as she would have been killed. Luckily for her (because she was oh-so-lucky) the orcs found her to be “good sport.” How many injuries could she sustain before she would succumb to illness, blood loss and starvation?

At some point, she’d stopped paying attention to the orc. There are two things orcs hate--bathing, and being ignored. The dwarrowdam might have wondered if the two were in any way connected if a hard, filthy fist hadn’t sunk into her stomach with the force of a charging dragon. All the air was knocked out of her lungs and her knees buckled. Her balance had been precarious to begin with. As black spots danced across her vision, she groaned faintly, praying to Mahal that the end would come quickly.

Chains rattled and she had only a moment to brace herself before the rusty cuffs cut into her wrists and she was dragged back toward the wall. Adjusting the length of her chain seemed to be very entertaining for the orcs. At any rate, they did it fairly often. Most, like this one, liked to drag her to the wall and hook the chain up so her arms were held in the air and she could neither lay down nor sit. This time, at least, she was given enough slack to remain seated, though she suspected this was because she refused to help him hoist her to her feet. The others might have been strong enough to force her to stand, but this one wasn’t one of the larger specimens.

A stiff, horny boot swung into her field of vision. The dwarf hadn’t even processed its existence before it collided with her face. She felt her nose crunch into a shape noses were never meant to be and, from the fresh taste of blood in her mouth, she was pretty sure that one or more of her teeth had been knocked loose.

Silence fell after that, and she was left to contemplate this newest source of pain as the world spun in lazy, disorienting circles around her, fading in and out of focus. During one of the in-focus times, she saw a pair of dirty, furry feet. Before she had too much time to wonder what sort of orc seriously needed to trim his toe hair, a cup of dirty brown water and a scrap of raw meat slid into view. Slowly, she lifted her head. It wasn’t an orc at all. It was one of the little folk, the ones that lived in the west. Obviously, this one had seen better days. It was thin and hollow-cheeked, eyes glassy with too much trauma and not enough peace. It managed a half-hearted smile, however, and gestured to the food, indicated that she should eat. The dwarf rattled her chains pointedly.

Can’t very well feed myself if I’m bound. Not that either of them would dare make too much noise, lest they attract more orc attention. The halfling glanced nervously over its shoulder, then picked up the meat and cup. The water, though brackish, was a blessing. The meat, though raw (or mostly so) was… well, it was food of a sort, anyway. When the sparse meal, if it could even be called that, was gone, the halfling stepped back. It gave her another of those strange, half-dead smiles, and scurried away, just as silently as it had come.

* * *

If it weren’t for the little halfling slave, she would have died quickly. Some days, she blessed the creature, and others she heaped curses on its curly head. The phrase “do I want to face another day of this?” came to her time and again, and each time it seemed little more seductive. And each time she was repulsed by the idea of even trying to suicide. Dying in battle was one thing, but this was another beast altogether.

It was more than amazing to her how long she could stand the treatment of the orcs. Food and water were as rare as sunlight in this dark, dead place, and not a beast among them ever thought to treat her wounds at all, not even to clean them. This was probably just as well, considering how clean they were. She'd probably die more quickly if any of them attempted whatever form of botched medicine they practiced, if indeed they 'practiced.'

The days slithered past, sometimes rushing onward in great dollops of time and sometimes dragging by as languidly as a firedrake on a cold morning. At least, she assumed days were passing. It felt like days were passing. Weeks, even. But there was really no way to tell, down here in the mines. There were periods of time she could neither recall, nor summon the energy to be bothered about, as she had most likely been unconscious. At least she didn't have to worry about giving the orcs information. They seemed far more interested in torturing her for pleasure than trying to accomplish anything of use. She was just grateful that Azog the Defiler hadn't seen fit to visit his attention on her. As moody and unstable as he'd been since the battle, favoring the stump of his severed arm, he probably would have ended her life quickly.

The dwarf paused in that line of thought, and wondered why she didn't want Azog to notice her. She decided that whatever tortures his idiot cronies could think of, Azog would doubtless do much, much worse.

As time blurred into an indistinguishable stream of leering faces, pain and blessed unconsciousness, the dwarf's mind drifted to her dragon. Distantly, as though muffled by the stone and miles that separated them, she could feel the drake's distress, his fear and anger, his desperation to return to her, and his despair at being stopped time and again. At times, when her restless sleep permitted dreaming, she thought she saw her own brother, drawing the great stone door across the entrance of the nest, blocking out the light.

Ganith had never been one to wait things out. Thinking of him made her smile, even in this terrible place. Ganith. The only creature she'd ever really loved. Her loyalty to Thror had been another beast entirely. Thrain was worthy, but a little eccentric. She'd always thought so. And Thorin... her mind shied away from the idea of connecting the two concepts; Thorin and love. She had defended him with her life, had pledged her axe to his cause, had followed him into battle.

To be shaken out of dazed thoughts of her kin and her dragon, only to see the sneering, oily face of a goblin, was not what the dwarf would have called “pleasant.” Really, it wasn’t even “tolerable.” The chains, the filth, the constant gnawing of hunger--and now fresh pain, as the goblin pricked her with a shiny Elven dagger. He (she thought it was a he, anyway. If there were any females of his breed in the mines, she’d never noticed them) dug the point of the dagger into her forearm, giggling wheezily as the dark, thick blood oozed sluggishly from the wound. From the way he was looming over her, she could only assume the last orc must have let her lie down, though she didn’t remember.

From somewhere in her cold, aching self, there came heat. Heat like dragonfire, heat like someone had just pumped the bellows over a bed of coals. White heat. It swept through her, igniting all as it passed. With a furious snarl, she lunged upward, and their heads collided with a sharp, ugly crack. The goblin reeled back with a squeal of pain, and the torchlit hall filled with harsh, raucous laughter. It was only then the dwarf noticed that they weren’t alone. The goblin with the elven blade had brought three of his buddies along, all smaller than him. They looked like vicious, hairless weasels on two legs, hunched and short-limbed, squinting at her as though she were food.

To them, she probably was. Or would be, shortly.

The goblin sprang forward again with a howl of rage, while she was yet on her knees. Getting to her feet took time--time she didn’t have. The flat of that shiny blade struck her across the face, once, twice. She lost her balance and fell, lifting her arms to protect her head.

“Gut him! Slice him!” shrieked the smallest of her enemies, hopping up and down with disgusting excitement. “Cut him, rip him, tear him!”

“Cut off its head and take it to Azog!” hissed another.

“If it dies, who takes his place?” rasped the first, a trickle of black blood making its way toward one bulbous eye. Leaving off with the knife, he started to kick the fallen dwarf in the ribs, cackling as she curled away from him, face set in a rictus of pain. “You think you was gettin’ the easy way out, Dwarf?” He grabbed a handful of her tangled hair and yanked her head up. Something in her neck popped. “You ain’t gonna die yet. An’ I’ll make sure you pay for that.” Rather than letting her drop (which would have been painful enough) he gripped her hair until it felt like he was trying to rip it out, then smashed her head cruelly into the gritty stone.

The world exploded into floating sparks and hovering shadows, and the dwarf cried out in spite of herself. Violent, echoing laughter redoubled, and she felt more hands on her, lifting her and dropping her and lifting her again. Pain screamed along every nerve, to the point where she could no longer hold on to the pitiful contents of her stomach. At least she managed to vomit onto the one with the blade. Retribution comes only to those who take it.

Retribution doesn’t come, however, without a price. The goblin, now fit to be tied, spat at the others to “hold her down.” Once again, the shiny elven blade approached her, and this time she was too weak and dizzy to fight. That wasn’t from lack of trying. There were two heavy, grimy hands on each arm, and one of the orcs was sitting on her legs. The dwarf stared upward through patches of brightest white and shivering black at the face of her tormentor, which refused to come into focus. The result was that she didn’t know what he was doing until she felt the first chunk of her beard part from her chin. It was as though he had taken another of her fingers. The hair neither bled nor burned with the intense, fiery pain of muscle and tendon recoiling from the void of air, but there was such an immediate, visceral reaction to the loss of her beard that the dwarrowdam redoubled her struggles. The goblin with the blade took only too much pleasure in grabbing a handful of hair and slamming her head into the ground once, twice, thrice more, until she was too sick and dizzy to move.

When she woke again, the orcs were gone. Torchlight no longer flickered along the walls, and she could only assume that they had taken the torches with them. Fire danced along her limbs and burned holes in her ribcage, and yet she shuddered from the cold of dead things and stone that crept into her bones.

_From stone Mahal made us, and to stone we return. That doesn’t make sleeping on it in the interim any more comfortable._

Who had said it, she couldn’t recall, but she felt, somehow, that she was safe. Well, safer. Maybe it had been a dream. A dream of dark, familiar places and someone she trusted.

It took a tremendous effort to sit up, to set her back against the wall again. Moving hurt. Breathing hurt. Thinking hurt. But pain, she reasoned, meant she was still alive. And where life remained, there was a chance for things to get better.

The sound of feet approaching reached her ears, and the female tensed, which made hurting things hurt even more. But it wasn’t booted orc-feet she was hearing. Out of the utter darkness of the tunnel, into the dwarf’s limited range of vision, came a pair of furry feet. She felt herself relax, and cursed the habits that made her an easy target. The rest of her quiet little friend came into sight, and she could see the halfling was carrying something between its hands. Another form emerged from the darkness behind it, taller and a little broader, though not much. This one, too, was a slave, by the rags it wore, but looked more dwarfish than the other, its bare feet free of hair and a shadow of stubble along its jaw.

The dwarfish slave winced when it saw her, chained as she was to the wall. “He won’t be making it far,” it commented, in a voice that was feminine, despite the hoarseness of too much time in the mines. The halfling at her side made furious shushing noises and gestured for her to be quiet, and the taller slave fell obediently silent. The dwarf noticed, however, that the female slave had a bit of a stubborn set to her chin, and she wondered if the dwarfish one was new to Moria. The idea of slaves being taken, actively stolen from the road and dragged in here to suffer under the orcs and their despicable, stunted, feral dragons, made the dwarf grit her teeth in helpless rage. Even that action, however small, reminded her of the headache that still pounded between her temples, and the raw, cold feeling of the air on her chin only increased the sensation of helplessness. What was a dwarf that could neither fight, nor protect herself?

The halfling was making a series of significant gestures to its dwarfish companion (a halfbreed, she assumed) and pointed to the captive’s wrists, miming breaking something open. The cuffs that bound her took two hands to operate, and were rusted almost permanently shut. The dwobbit seemed to understand, though, and knelt to work the clasps. It was then that the dwarf realized her rescuer wore a heavy collar. It was broad and leather, unlike the iron band that burdened her own throat. A leather collar, made of the yellowish-white dragon-hide of an orc dragon, no less, meant that this dwobbit was a personal slave, and the ropes of lean muscle that kept her bony body together marked her as a fighter. It would be just like an orc to take his personal slave and force her to fight against others. Her reaction to the concept was a combination of anger and pity, but the dwobbit didn’t seem to notice, struggling with the shackles.

At length, she had one open, though it screeched in rusty protest and all three of them froze, listening for the approach of orcs. If they were caught trying to help her escape--was that what they were doing? Helping her escape? She didn’t have time to contemplate this thought, for as the dwobbit moved to start the laborious process of prying open the second shackle, the world exploded.

The dwobbit neither tensed nor looked up from her work, and the dwarrowdam could only assume that the chaotic rage and pain in her mind were just that; in her mind. Still, she knew that feeling from somewhere. Somewhere very important. Some_one_ important. Her sluggish thoughts, sedated by pain and lack of food couldn’t scrounge up the appropriate memory. Someone important. Someone who made her feel safe. Someone who could touch her mind. All at once, it dawned on her _exactly_ who was angry, who was fighting, who was in the halls above her, searching for her.

_:GANITH!:_

The mental scream rebounded and echoed within her own mind, but the hobbit, already staring at the ceiling with an expression of horror on its face, twitched, and glanced at her. Flapping its hands at its fellow, it made signs to run, to flee, to hide. And without further ado, it did precisely that, leaving the bewildered dwobbit behind. After a tense moment of silent deliberation, the dwobbit glanced into her face, and nodded slightly before returning to her work, prizing the rusty cuff open with great difficulty, levering with a familiar shiny elven knife.

But now there were sounds from above, shouts and hurrying feet, curses and metal clashing on stone. The orcs were going somewhere, and the louder the commotion grew, the more orcs joined it. Soon the beasts on this level would be awake as well. The dwarf gave her dwobbit rescuer a kick, gesturing sharply with her free hand, indicating for her to flee. A full-throated roar echoed down the tunnels from above, seeming to shake the very stone. Ganith had come for her. But it was only a matter of time before--and now the sound of orc-boots was rushing toward them. The first few that passed didn’t notice the dwobbit at all, despite the fact that she refused to leave. She was, however, now pressed against the wall with her eyes shut. A slave’s defiance would only carry her so far.

The dwarf scrabbled at her remaining shackle, desperate to be free, to go to her dragon, to fight with him, to escape. She could dimly feel him, levels above, his mind incoherent with rage and bloodlust. The full battle-fury was upon him, and she knew he would kill a great many orcs, even in the tight confines of the mines of Moria, before any managed to subdue him.

They wouldn’t subdue him at all, if she had her way about it.

Before she could work the cuff open, however, an orc stopped near them. He looked vaguely familiar; a large, broad-chested specimen with greenish black skin and greasy dreadlocks. Half Uruk, if she wasn’t mistaken, but her mind was on other things. More importantly, he had a smear of faded red-brown on his shoulder that she was sure had once been a symbol of some sort. As the Uruk grasped her and her dwobbit friend by the collars and lifted them into the air, he snarled, fetid breath washing over them in hot gusts that would have made her puke if there’d been anything left in her stomach.

Being lifted by a collar, particularly a metal one, puts a great strain on one’s neck. The dwarf felt as though her spine might simply snap just below her skull. A few hours ago, she would have welcomed the relief of death. Now, Ganith needed her, was looking for her, would die without her. That was a loss she couldn’t live with. So now, even when her feet were dangling far above the stone floor, she struggled.

“Tryin’ ta use the dragon as a diversion, eh? Azog will wanna know about this.” He grinned unpleasantly and dropped the dwarf on her feet, which refused to hold her. While she was too disoriented to fight too much, he snapped the shackle around her free wrist again, pinching off a good bit of skin in the process. “If you’re still here when I get back,” he taunted, “then maybe I’ll learn ya your place.”

He carried the dwobbit away, no longer rushing pell-mell through the passages as the others did. The dwarf watch him go, screaming her helpless rage at his back, and only vaguely aware of the answering roar from far above, shaking dust from the ceiling.

* * *

She had thought that being held captive in one of the great kingdoms of the dwarves, mutilated and ruined by orcs, was torment beyond anything she would ever experience again. She was wrong. Ganith fought long and valiantly, but no matter how she tried to reach him, the dragon either couldn’t hear her, or was so insensible in his lust for vengeance that he was unable to respond. Far worse than hearing the battle above and being unable to join was the silence that followed. She could sense Ganith’s presence now (though still muffled, she thought, by layer upon layer of thick, cold stone) but knew nothing of how badly he was hurt or whether he was being held captive like her. The dwarf clung to the hope that he’d holed up in one of the empty chambers above and was staving off the orcs and planning for their escape.

Hope, however, wasn’t enough to stave off the fear of not knowing.

Even worse than not knowing (because she really needed more of the “worse” end of the spectrum) was the renewed attention of the orcs and goblins that lived in the mines. The differences between the two races were subtle, and the dwarf didn’t often bother to distinguish between them. In general, though, the goblins were smaller, and used knives more often than their boots or fists. They had a special fascination with things that were shiny (or bleeding), and the elven blade stayed near at hand as the parade of tortures passed before her. She felt its sting again and again, and wondered how long it would continue like this--how long it _had_ continued. Time had lost all meaning since Ganith’s assault on the front gate. The orcs seemed to enjoy taunting her with tidbits of informations about her dragon and what had happened.

“I stuck ‘im good, didn’ I, boys?” The orc struck a pose for her, grinning nastily. “Slipped me blade ‘tween ‘is scales an’ twisted it good.”

“Hardly went more ‘n an ‘and in,” countered one of “the boys,” looking terribly arrogant. “I ‘eard Bolg got ‘im in the eye. Used a pike.”

“Well, if I’d ‘ad a pike-” protested the first orc, sputtering.

That conversation ended in a scuffle, which quickly turned into a new form of “fun” with the captive dwarf. She fought as well as she could, but there was only so much she could do. Knuckles renewed old bruises, boots ensured fractured ribs didn’t heal, not even improperly. She was grateful (in whatever capacity she could feel such a thing) that her ribs weren’t _broken._

It was therefore unsurprising when it took the dwarrowdam several seconds to recognize the presence of a new orc. His large boots seemed to have rusty nails sticking out of the toes, and what she could see of him was large in proportion to the boots, muscular and well-fed. There was an unhealthy, pale cast, even in addition to the white pallor that pervaded his hide. White. Orc. The dwarf shuddered and slowly lifted her gaze to find Azog the Defiler scowling down at her.

Where his arm had been severed at the elbow seemed more or less healed, though there was some angry red swelling around what appeared to be a twisted iron sconce. Or had been, once. Now it resembled a thick, three-pronged claw, clumsily forged and blackened. He was speaking. How long had he been speaking? The dwarf attempted to focus on him, and from what little she knew of the Black Speech, he was saying something about dragons and death.

Panic lanced through her. Whatever Azog was saying, it wasn’t good, and it probably had something to do with Ganith. Her strength by then was so reduced that she could barely sit up, and it was a real fight to do so. Something clattered to the ground beside her, and the dwarf nearly toppled in an effort to get away from it, whatever it was. A plate. Whatever was on the plate was unrecognizable.

“Eat, Dwarf,” the Pale Orc said in heavily accented Westron. “Soon, you fight.” With that obscure message, he left, chuckling to himself.


	2. Death and Dragons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has yet to be betaread. I may be updating it again in the nearish future.

Orc food is disgusting.

Even orcs would likely agree. The dwarf couldn’t imagine they enjoyed it very much, considering how eager they were to steal food from anyone else. Even trolls cooked better than orcs, and having seen a troll’s cooking pot, that was really saying something.

Still, even disgusting food is food.

Azog’s final statement, that soon she would fight, haunted her, but at the same time, it was a source of brilliant, burning hope. Not for a second did she believe the orc had intended to give her that hope, nor did she think she hoped for the same sort of fight that he had planned for her. No, she would regain what strength she could from the maggoty, moldy, damp and crumbling whatever-it-was that they were serving her and then she would find Ganith and they would escape together. Somewhere high above her, through several levels and many thick layers of stone, she could feel the great firedrake. Since his fury had abated, it was harder to feel him, but he was there, she was sure of it. He was still alive, and though she knew little else of his condition, the fact that he hadn’t died was a blessing in disguise.

At times, she almost wished that Ganith were dead. Then she would be free to pursue a noble death at the hands of an angry orc, fighting against the bonds that kept her in this cursed place. Invariably, the concept would occur to her and be immediately rejected. No amount of longing for the peace of death would outweigh the value of her dragon’s life. There were few enough firedrakes as it was. To sacrifice one to convenience would be an unforgivable crime, and she’d no doubt see her punishment in the Halls of Mandos, before the End.

_But this is not the End. Where there is life, there’s always a chance that things can get better._

She was alive, and he was alive. Together, she and Ganith would beat this, no matter what the odds. Ganith had always been smart, and she doubted very much that he would have come here without a plan. All she needed to do was to get close enough to reach him. Their bond was a strong one. She was sure it wouldn't take much. It _couldn’t_ take much.

* * *

If she’d had the strength, the foresight, the guts, then she would have lopped off his head. As it was, the concept didn’t occur to her until after he’d kicked the elven knife out of her reach. The goblin sneered down at her, unhooked the chain from the wall and started to lead her at an uncomfortably swift trot through the dark passages. Of course, “lead” was the polite way to put it. The reality was a bit more like “drag.” This way and that, down the steps and sloping tunnels, deeper and deeper under the mountains. The dwarf knew she couldn’t afford to stumble or fall. Any hint of weakness now would result in punishment.

The tunnel opened up before them suddenly, and the goblin stepped into a cavern easily large enough to house two or three good-sized cathedrals. Shelves of rock, unevenly spaced in levels around the edge, were full to bursting with orcs, goblins, and a number of other creatures she had no name for (and desired to know nothing about). A dreadful feeling, like swallowing chunks of ice, settled in the pit of her stomach as she realized the sunken area in the middle of the packed, noisy cavern was nothing more or less than an arena. A fighting arena. Below them, even as the goblin jerked her chain so she was forced to stumble down the stairs toward the arena floor, she saw two small figures being taken out. The first seemed to be a goblin. His neck was crooked at an unnatural angle, and dark blood smeared across the stone behind him as his companions dragged him out. The second was a half-conscious figure in slave’s clothing--a dwobbit wearing a thick leather collar.

The dwarf’s heart seized for just a second, but as she got closer, she realized that the dwobbit being dragged out of the ring only had one hand. One of its arms ended in a raw, red stump, a shard of bone protruding from the point of the severed wrist. The dwobbit that had come with her silent little friend, the female carried off by the Uruk, had definitely had two hands. The thought that one of her hands may have been removed as a punishment for trying to help her escape was one she wouldn't entertain. She knew she couldn’t afford the distraction.

This concept was driven home thoroughly when the goblin yanked her chain so hard that she fell the last few steps and sprawled on the rough stone floor of the arena. The crowd burst into howls and screams of laughter. Clearly, pain was their chief attraction, and humiliation a close second. The goblin unhooked the clanking, rusty weight from her collar and hurried off, dragging the chain with him and leaving her alone in the huge circle. What looked like an iron portcullis slammed home behind him, locking her inside the ring. The dwarf pushed herself to her feet and scanned the empty space warily. She would fight to the death here. The stone beneath her feet was stained in splashes and swathes far too large and dark to indicate anything else. Some of the stains were still wet. It must have been an active day for them.

Just then a deep voice, one that filled her with a familiar, helpless rage, boomed out from the lowest shelf at the point furthest to her right. A glance confirmed her suspicions. Azog reclined there, surrounded by slaves who were, she suspected, too frightened to cower. The Pale Orc’s words rolled over her, the Black Speech rendering his message incomprehensible. He gestured to her, however, and glanced lazily about at the crowd. There was some commotion not far from him, and a young orc wielding a spiked mace surged to the front of the crowd. He bellowed something and brandished his weapon energetically, and the other creatures roared their approval. She thought she recognized the orcish word for “dwarf-scum” but with the way his voice cracked in his enthusiasm, it wasn’t easy to tell. Someone relieved him of his mace, and pushed him over the edge, into the pit that served as their fighting ring.

The young orc landed on his feet, cat-like and agile. She might have found this more intimidating than any manner of threats or yelling if she’d had time to think about it. Baring his teeth, he moved toward her, gathering speed. Her opponent was healthy and well-fed, strong enough to survive among his kin and confident enough to enter the ring.

Confidence doesn’t have anything to do with it. He knows I’ve been starved and beaten--how much trouble could I be? A pause, as the arena seemed to fall silent. She could see the audience bellowing and screeching, but had eyes (and ears) only for the orc rushing toward her, fists clenched and shoulders bunched, ready for a powerful first swing. I’ll show them how much trouble I can be.

If the orc had been one of her students, she would have let him strike at her and thoroughly enraged and humiliated him by staying just out of reach. But he wasn’t one of her students, and she wasn’t in top form anymore. No mercy would be shown today. His first blow was aimed low, and would have hit her square in the gut if she’d let it. Too low to be ducked. Swaying out of the way, she felt his fist graze her side as she leaned forward and rammed her shoulder into his groin. With a howl, the orc tumbled over her back and landed with a painful thud on the rock.

Before he’d had time to recover, the dwarf was pivoting on her toes. Knees bent, center of gravity low, she swung her free foot in an arc. She was at her most vulnerable then, her weight balanced on one foot, her body in motion. But the young orc was in the process of rolling to his feet, and couldn’t take advantage of it. The dwarrowdam braced herself and dropped her full weight and momentum onto one knee, driving it into her opponent’s ribs. Something cracked.

The reaction was immediate and painful. The orc’s apparent youth had convinced her that he was untrained and stupid. She could have known better. One brawny arm lashed out, hooked, blackened nails poised like claws on fingers rigid with pain. The dwarf was still recovering from her own attack, couldn’t dodge. Blood spattered the ground and she reeled away, becoming aware of the crowd as it screeched its many-throated approval.

Now he was on his feet, surging toward her, one hand clasping his injured ribs. She tried to brace herself, tried to duck, tried not to get hit. She failed. His claws plunged mercilessly into her shoulder and ripped, down and out. Impossibly, she heard the squelch of wet flesh releasing sharp nails an instant before the fiery, bloody pain surged along her nerves. Hot, viscous liquid drenched what remained of her shirt, but to stop moving would be to sign her own death-sentence.

1\. Lay down and die.

Not an option.

2\. Retreat.

Also not an option. At best, he’d let her bleed to death. At worst, he’d follow her and make the crowd happy.

3\. Attack.

The dwarf blinked once. One of his hands was thrust downward, following through on his swipe (which, to her disgust, had been wild and unguided--she might have avoided it easily, or turned it against him even). The other was still locked around his ribs.. His body was bent at the waist, and he was still moving forward. She had less than a second before he either stumbled past her or collided with her. Either would be to his advantage. Off-balance as she was, she still had her low center of gravity, and one hand still at full strength.

Three… his weight was falling on his forward foot, his hind foot lifting off the ground. Two… the orc turned his head slightly to ascertain the damage his attack had done. One… The dwarf’s elbow shot up, catching his chin. The orc’s momentum was too much to stop. He barreled into her, and they fell together. Grabbing his body, ignoring the screams of protest from her wounded shoulder, she threw him backward. POP went his spine, CRACK went his neck. They rolled to a stop, and it took the captive a full three seconds to push the heavy, reeking body off of her. The orc twitched a little, but he wouldn’t be getting up again. She staggered to her feet, head spinning, nauseous and weak. What would she do if they sent another fighter at her? How could she win in this condition? Did it matter? She _would_ win. And if she didn’t, then she would fall in battle, as a dwarf should.

“He was weak.” The rumble of Azog’s voice broke through her pained, exhausted stupor, and the dwarf turned slightly to look at him. He was grinning. “See how well you fare this time, Dwarf.”

The venom in his tone, implying that “Dwarf” was an insult, wasn’t at all surprising. The orc, however, jerked his head at one of the slaves, who immediately leaped over the barrier, landing with slightly less ease than her former opponent. This one, like the dwobbit, was wearing a leather collar, and it looked as though it genuinely regretted the necessity of fighting her as it strode forward.

At first, the dwarrowdam couldn’t even tell what it was. Under the layer of filth and the rags that hung loosely off its near-emaciated body, it was difficult to recognize a thin, beardless dwarf. She stared at her new opponent with growing horror as the realization of what Azog was doing dawned on her. This dwarf was likely one of the soldiers from Erebor. It was possible that they were the only two left of the prisoners that had been taken the day of the battle.

Only one of them would survive.

The female let out a heated oath and moved forward to meet her opponent, absolutely positive that this would be the end, one way or another. Somewhere high, high above them, Ganith was waiting for her to come to him. Brave, intelligent, loving Ganith, who might never see her again. For his sake, she would try to win. For his sake, she would do her level best to come out on top. But that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t hate every second of the fight to come.

It occurred to her, very briefly, that they might simply both refuse to fight. What then? The orcs couldn’t _force_ them to fight to the death. _But then,_  whispered a sensible voice that she wished could be properly silenced, _you would both have an entire army of angry orcs to contend with, not to mention Azog, and all the other unspeakable creatures out there._

The dwarves hit one another at a run. He was heavier than she, and had been able to pick up more speed. She recognized his technique immediately and knew, with a sickening certainty that left no room for delusions of innocence, that he was one of her own students. He was fast and at least mostly uninjured. Two of his blows landed solid hits before she managed to get under his guard. Her fists pounded into his ribs and as he staggered back, she pursued him, hitting him hard. The dwarf's beard had been shorn roughly and cruelly short, just like hers had been, and without it his expression was painfully easy to read. The pain and desperation, the determination.

He doubled over, arms folded over his stomach as he stumbled back a couple steps, and as if on reflex, her knee came up and smashed into his face. He dropped like a stone, hitting the floor with a grunt of pain. The dwarrowdam paused, breathing hard. She knew he hadn't been fighting with everything he had. It would have been an even fight. This... him _letting_ her win... it felt tainted. Wrong.

"Kill me," he groaned, rolling slowly to his feet. "Please... kill me."

"Finish him off," growled Azog, and his voice was so deep and insistent that it felt as though he were standing right behind her. The dwarrowdam set her jaw. What had started as uncertainty hardened into rebellion.

She shook her head.

And suddenly, she could hear the crowd again. There were hisses and screeches of protest, and loud cackles from those who seemed to know something was coming. The dwarf scowled her.

"What are you doing?" he snarled in Khuzdul. "I said kill me!"

She spat on the floor near his feet, noting that the liquid was thick and red. _I don't kill for pleasure._

If he'd intended to make any response, she never heard it. The cackling, screeching and howling went quiet--so quiet that they could hear the approaching boots before either of them turned to look at the orc. Azog reached casually for the male and picked him up by the collar. The dwarf spluttered and struggled, his face quickly turning scarlet. No manner of pulling and wriggling could free him, though, and the orc held him there are as his complexion faded from scarlet to purple, purple to blue.

With a surge of anger, the female threw herself forward, only to catch Azog's boot with her face. When she came to again, she was on her back and staring at the distant ceiling. A pale face moved into her field of vision. While she was watching, Azog took the wheezing dwarf and raised him to eye-level.

"The ones that care," he growled, smiling maliciously, "always scream the loudest."

The dwarf struggled and thrashed, his mouth clamped shut until the Pale Orc's eyes slid out of focus with an almost euphoric expression. The dwarf froze, opened his mouth and let out a piercing, heart-wrenching scream. A shriek of pure, unadulterated agony, as though his very spirit were being torn in two. Distantly, faintly, she could hear the echo of Azog's mental voice, as though he'd targeted the dwarf's mind was such force that she was feeling ripples of a distant explosion.

She pushed herself up onto her elbows, desperately trying to reach for the dwarf's mind, trying to block it, to shield him even partially--but she couldn't. It was like trying to stretch a limb encased in steel. She remembered the feeling of Azog's words sinking barbs into her mind, like he’d scraped his claws along the inside of her skull. No one deserved that kind of punishment.

Whether the shields were Azog’s method of punishment or not, she wasn’t sure, but it took a tremendous effort to throw them off. All at once, her brain was inundated by sensations and voices that had been kept out. The dwarf’s mind thrashed in incoherent agony, and Azog’s voice thundered through her mind, even though she wasn’t the target of his attack.

**_YOU DIE WHEN I SAY. NO SOONER._ **

Whatever else he’d said was already lost to the vast emptiness of the space between their minds. The orc dropped his writhing victim so he fell in a heap on the stone floor. The dwarrowdam reached for her fellow’s mind, but was forced to withdraw from the raw, mangled pain of it. She’d never felt a shattered mind before, but if his twitching and whimpering were any indication, she just had. No one recovered from something like that. Azog had turned slightly, and now his icy blue gaze landed on her, and she became aware of how dreadfully exposed she was. How vulnerable. By the delighted sneer on his scarred face, Azog was aware of it, too.

A feeling of something… almost _slimy_ brushed against her mind, and the female shuddered, desperately trying to put up her shields and keep him away. Her haste, however, made her clumsy, and bred panic as she scooted away from the orc, trying to put enough physical distance between them that he couldn’t reach her mind. That was a foolish thought at best, and a dangerous one if Azog decided this was defiance.

**_Next time, I won’t be so kind._ **

If the captive’s previous experience with Azog’s mind voice had been like having her brain clawed, this was much, much creepier. It was as though, with the sensual pleasure of one caressing a lover, the orc were making a cut with a knife so sharp it didn’t hurt until it started to bleed. But when it bled, it opened a flow right from the heart, swift and scarlet. Even as Azog’s presence withdrew from her mind, the unseen damage made itself known, burning like dragonfire. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

Thinking impossible.

Solution: act.

The dwarf shoved herself ruthlessly to her feet, uttering little more than a grunt to express her pain. As she reached for the axe she no longer carried, her shoulder wrenched out of place of its own accord. Or it seemed like it had. All at once, the dwarrowdam realized that she was hanging in the air, and Azog was holding her by the elbow, letting her dangle from his hand like a little boy holding a cat by its tail.

When the orc spoke, it was in his own foul tongue, though the tone seemed to be amused, rather than angry. He dropped her on top of her twitching companion and bellowed something that brought two smaller orcs scurrying into the ring. The captive could only watch as the two of them were dragged away in separate directions. In a matter of painful, blurred minutes, she was beside a familiar stretch of wall. There was the split that ran from ceiling to floor, dividing into a spider’s web of miniscule, nearly invisible cracks in the middle. And here was the chain, and the shackles. The goblin must have put them back after she’d been delivered to the arena. Or maybe a slave had put them here. The rusty metal clamped shut around her wrists with a sound like eternity’s door locking her out.

After that, it was all quiet and dark. Even in the silence of this wretched place, she could hear the rasping, tortured screams of the warrior as Azog tore his shields like tissue paper, dug into his mind with words like blades and ripped it apart. A vague, unfocused part of her mind whispered that the warrior would never recover, if indeed he even lived through the night.It took several long seconds for the dwarf to realize that she wasn’t looking at bare rock anymore. There was a pair of furry feet in the way. Slowly, she lifted her gaze to the halfling’s face, feeling as though the simple action was akin to opening the gates of Erebor with only her own two hands.

The quiet little fellow (at some point, she’d decided he must be male, for whatever reason) looked somehow more ragged than she remembered. His face, ever gaunt and dirty, seemed all but _hollow_ now, though she didn’t think he could have possibly lost any weight. To lose weight would mean that one had possessed weight to lose. This poor creature didn’t. The slave stooped, and she stared, uncomprehending, as his hands scratched and pried at the shackles. It was quite a task for him to heave them open, but open they did. At length, he withdrew a little chunk of damp, moldy-looking bread from the inside of the rags that served as his shirt and pressed it into her hands, then gestured for her to follow him.

She hesitated.

Wouldn’t there be orcs about? It was the middle of the day, at least she assumed it was, as she’d only just returned from the arena, and everyone there had been… oh. The dwarf felt things click into place and she shakily pushed herself to her feet. Yes, the orcs were awake, but the vast majority of them were down in the arena, watching their slaves and fellows fight and die for their entertainment. Still, stealth and speed were of the essence, and injured as she was… but she was better fed now than she had been a week ago, or two weeks ago. Setting her jaw, she followed the halfling, not even protesting when he pushed the elven knife into her free hand.

The moldy bread made her stomach gurgle and clench, but for the most part she ignored it. About them, the halls were mostly empty. The figures they saw were usually slaves, or orcs so sick and wounded that they couldn’t have stopped them unless the halfling had led her right into their arms. Dying and doomed creatures, that’s what they were. The dwarf had barely started to worry about how to communicate the presence of her firedrake partner to the little halfling when he turned away from the larger halls that would have led them to the front gates.

The halls they moved through were large and ill-used, dark with grime and a distinct lack of torches. There were, however, an abundance of scorch-marks on the stone, and the dwarf's heart beat faster, the first true glimmers of hope were ignited in her breast. So eager was she to see her dragon again, that she didn't notice the orcs that guarded him until they were almost on top of them. Luckily, the orcs were just as surprised as she was, and didn't immediately leap upon her. This gave her time to disembowel the first with the knife she'd forgotten she was holding and then meet the other as he rushed at her with a howl of rage. She needn't have bothered, though. Ganith's huge, spiky head thrust out with a hiss, long fangs closing around the orc with an unpleasant squelching crunch.

The firedrake was curled sinuously in a corner of a chamber more than large enough to accommodate his bulk. The dwarf caught herself wondering if Moria had been home to drakes like Ganith before Durin's Bane had been unearthed. The thought was fleeting at best. The next moment, she safe in the hollow between his flank and the long, leathery forelimb that also served as a wing. Ganith, to her dismay, swallowed the dead orc he held in his jaws before turning his attention to her. Without hesitation, she reached for him with her mind, but immediately regretted it. Azog's attack had damaged something inside and the very act of reaching caused bolts of pain to shoot through her from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.

:Little warrior.: Ganith's voice was like thunder in her mind. The dwarf whimpered, hating this weakness, this pain. The dagger fell from nerveless fingers as Ganith curled around her, extending his impenetrable shields to cover her as well. But the unfiltered contact of his mind with hers was nearly unbearable. It felt just as though he were breathing a long stream of dragonfire through her eyes and into her brain. At once, he withdrew, and she could feel his bewildered concern for her in spite of the pounding in her head. The contact, however, was enough for him to know what she'd come for.

All at once, she felt huge claws about her. Two long ones, and a third short, hooked claw where the thumb might have been. Ganith had her cradled in the thick, leathery joint of one enormous wing, and was heaving himself to his hind feet. His balance wasn't as good as it might have been, but one could expect nothing better from the valiant beast after his captivity. The dwarf was beginning to notice that his scales, usually brilliant orange, like the heart of a campfire, were dull and yellowish. It was only as Ganith stepped out into the hall that she realized that her silent little friend had disappeared.

_:The halfling!:_

This mental exclamation, almost completely unintentional, felt as though it might split her skull in two. The firedrake paused momentarily, twisting his head about on his long, muscular neck, looking for the halfling his rider seemed so distressed about. There it was--the slave was standing at the end of the hall and beckoning to the dragon, glancing worriedly over his shoulder. Cradling the dwarf against his chest, the drake moved toward the halfling, following the slave's lead as he scampered ahead of the dragon's shuddering footfalls. The poor thing let out a squeak of fear when he rounded a corner ahead of them, then dove back almost immediately, followed by five gleeful orcs. Their glee didn't last long, as Ganith scorched the smiles right off their stupid faces. He didn't have much energy, and his fire wasn't as hot as it could have been, but it was enough to serve a paltry five orcs the death they deserved.

The dwarrowdam, curled in Ganith's wing, reached for the halfling as he crouched by the dragon's left hind paw. Stretching as far as she possibly could, she tried to catch the halfling and pull him up, but the little fellow met her gaze and shook his head.

:Go.: The voice was unfamiliar, careworn and higher-pitched than any dwarf. The voice that belonged to the shireling inspired new waves of pain in her mind. She didn't understand. Why would he stay? What did he have to stay for? Before she could muster the strength to ask, though, Ganith was carrying her onward, torching another orc on his way, shouldering the gates open.

The dwarf was aware of blindingly, searingly bright light, of falling, of being caught in huge, strong talons. The ground fell away and the gate receded into the distance and she was tucked against the smooth underside of Ganith's tail as they soared away. She was, of course, promptly and unhelpfully sick. She sensed that Ganith wanted to say something, but refrained, for the sake of her injured mind. Slowly, her shields were reforming, wrapping her in layers of silence and safety, but it still wasn't enough. Overwhelmed, weak, and disoriented, the dwarf allowed herself to be taken by the yielding, forgiving darkness.

_:Rest, little warrior. You are safe.:_

Pain. Darkness, warmth and pain.

But she knew, even as she slipped into unconsciousness, that she was leaving something terribly important behind in the mines of Moria.

 


	3. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: Thorin is a Jerk

The memory of pain was too fresh for anything else to register. Hands were holding her down, rough voices spoke over her head, foul-tasting liquid was poured into her mouth. What new torment had they invented for her now? Or had they finally tired of her and were dumping poison down her throat?

First relief, then rage swept through her, and she renewed her trashing. Ganith needed her. Death was an escape she couldn’t willingly take as long as her dragon was trapped in this disgusting place. Violently spitting out the liquid, the dwarf threw herself against the hands that restrained her.

“Keep her steady! She’ll open up those cuts again.”

“What’s the matter with her?”

Someone yelped as she felt her foot connect with a warm body. Perhaps it was that yelp that broke through, or maybe she just realized that none of the voices sounded like they belonged to orcs. In fact, one of them was growling mild oaths in Khuzdul.

“Let me see her!”

“It’s not safe.”

“She needs me!”

“We’re not even sure she’s ready-”

“Sister!”

She knew that voice. That was a safe voice. Opening her eyes was like taking daggers of light and driving them into her brain. She caught a glimpse of brown hair, full beard, and worried eyes. Eyes the color of slate. Just the color of her father’s eyes. A new hand found her arm, and the safe voice was closer.

“Easy, Sister. Rest. You’ll be alright soon.”

The dwarrowdam tried to grip his hand, tried to figure out what was going on. Someone tipped liquid into her mouth. Water. At least it didn’t taste like blood, so the chances of it being water seemed pretty high. Her mind was still in turmoil as the darkness reclaimed her. A voice she knew urged her to “hold on.”

* * *

No torches. Her nose told her, even before her eyes had the strength to open, that there were no torches here. The room she saw when her eyes finally cracked open wasn’t pitch-dark, neither was it the hall six levels below the surface in Moria. A single glowrock lamp hung in the corner, shuttered to indicate nighttime.

Erebor.

_Home._

Sick with relief, the dwarrowdam tried to sit up. For one blissful moment, she was convinced it had all been a terrible dream. Perhaps she’d fallen ill. Fever-dreams, she’d heard, were vivid and nightmarish. Sitting up wasn’t working very well, though. Her stomach, ribs, legs, and shoulders burned, forcing her to lay back on the cushions.

In the corner, something shifted.

As the figure stood, the face of Azog the Defiler loomed out of the shadows, and the injured dwarf let out a guttural snarl, lifting her arms to protect her face. Reality was skewed, her mind thrown into chaos by the clash of “Azog” and “Erebor” in the same breath.

“Be easy. I’m not here to hurt you.” Azog’s face seemed to fade, replaced by the pale, worried visage of her brother. Relief swamped her again, leaving her feeling weak and disoriented. Was she going mad? Had Azog ever really been there… anywhere?

“Here. Have a drink. You’ve been through a sight more than you ought. It’s a good to see you alive, Sister.”

Water. Blessedly cool, clear water, that tasted neither of blood nor decomposing waste, flowed between cracked lips. No more than a sip, but it was like a gift from Mahal. Liquid life.

When the little cup was empty, her brother eased her back onto the pillows. She opened her mouth to ask what had happened, but all that came out was a garbled sort of grunt. What had been a suspicion, a “something not quite right,” turned into real alarm.

Her brother caught one of her hands as she reached for her mouth, and she knew from the look on his face that it was gone. Her free hand touched her rough lips, and she received another jolt. Probing her mouth with the two remaining fingers of that hand, her heart sank. Missing fingers, missing tongue, missing teeth.

Scarred.

Incomplete.

Useless.

“Don’t, Sister. Don’t. You’re alive. That by itself is enough.” His grey eyes looked down at her, full over worry and hope. Hope? What was there left to hope for? She was slated for Captain of the Royal Guard. But what use is a maimed, mute captain? She didn’t want to see what else the orcs had taken from her. But her brother looked so… well, he could be feeling any number of things, but whatever it was, he was feeling it very strongly.

With a sigh, and wincing in anticipation of the pain to come, the dwarrodam reached for her brother’s mind. Almost immediately, she felt the solid, immovable barriers that had undoubtedly stopped him from speaking through their link before now. He must have seen the progression of frustration to fear on her face, because he gave her a little shake.

“It’s alright, Sister. Please-”

The door opened, admitting a tired-looking dwarf with healer’s braids in his beard. Glancing at his patient, he smiled faintly.

“Ah, you’re awake. Excellent. You’re in bad need of a hot meal, my friend.” The healer’s brusque, kindly manner felt familiar and comforting. Even if she was damaged beyond repair, at least she was home. But if she couldn’t speak aloud, and her mind was trapped inside her mutilated body--she tapped her brother’s hand. Iglishmêk had never been one of her strengths, but the need to speak was greater than her dislike of “finger-talk.”

_Where dragon?_ She couldn’t remember the sign that indicated _her_ dragon.

“In his eyrie. And worried sick about you, too. Says you’ve blocked him out.”

At first, she was stunned and hurt. Not only was she most certainly _not_ blocking anyone out, but now her precious Ganith had gone and established a rapport with her brother? She pushed it aside, concentrating ruthlessly on the signs she’d need for her next question.

_Where_ fumble fumble _Curly Toes?_  Inwardly, she cursed her limited vocabulary, and wished she’d paid more attention when she’d been learning to sign. Just then, her brother was frowning in apparent confusion.

“Where’s… who?”

_Toes. Short. Hair._ She kept signing until she found the word she was looking for. _Halfling._

Her brother shook his head slightly, still confused. “There aren’t any halflings here.”

“Balin.”

At some point, the door had opened again, and though the room was beginning to feel crowded, the injured dwarf couldn’t tear her eyes away from the newcomer. He was tall and broad, strong, but careworn and haggard. His blue eyes seemed painfully hollow compared to the bright laughter and grim determination she remembered. Thorin had changed.

They had all changed.

Reflexively, she tried to reach for his mind, and once again found herself blocked. And perhaps she could have lived with that, worked to fix it even, if the look on his face had registered anything other than betrayal.

“Balin, you…”

“We didn’t know for sure.” Her brother was moving around the bed, hurrying to diffuse the situation before it could become something they would all regret.

“You could have told me. _Should_  have. I thought she was dead.” Thorin’s voice was full of pain, but rather than moving to her bedside and clasping her hand, celebrating the fact that she was alive, the dwarf turned his back on them.

“Thorin!” Balin tried to catch his shoulder, but his hand passed only through empty air as Thorin disappeared out into the hall. For a moment, her brother just stood there, staring at the half-open door and listening to the sound of retreating boots. She tried to sit up, to get out of bed and follow him. Even if the healer hadn’t restrained her, though, she wouldn’t have made it far. Oh, the pain she could have fought through, but there was a feeling of debilitating weakness that pervaded every muscle in her body. As though _thinking_  about standing was enough to make her knees give out. As it was, her arms were trembling from the effort of pushing herself off the pillows, and her stomach churned uncomfortably.

Balin came back to the bed, a frown etched on his prematurely-lined face. It was too much of a challenge to make the sign for “follow” with missing fingers, so the dwarrowdam pointed vigorously at the door. Imperfect though it was, her message was clear.

“But, Sister-”

She pointed at the door again, grunting urgently. If he’d been closer, she would have pushed him.

“He’s still in mourning,” he protested softly, glancing at the door. Balin looked so uncertain that she actually lowered her pointing hand a bit. In mourning? Right--Thror was dead. She swallowed against the memory, and Balin nodded, looking at her again.

“Thror, Thrain, and Frerin, too. And… Father.” He paused a moment, pain echoing behind his grey eyes. “And Tsuth, as well.”

Shock rippled through her. King, father, brother, advisor, and dragon, all gone in one day. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what that would have felt like. There was a soft, dark voice at the back of her mind that whispered a list of her losses, already reasoning that she had lost more than Thorin, that he had no right to be angry with her. She ruthlessly ignored it.

“Hey! That is _not_ resting!” The healer scowled at her, but the dwarrowdam ignored him, too, hauling herself up using the front of Balin’s shirt. Poking him hard in the chest, she pointed severely at the door and made the sign for “king” (which took only two fingers, thank Mahal). He would know.

They were in service to the throne. Nothing, not even family, _ever_ came before the needs of the king.

Balin hesitated.

_Oath,_ she signed with a scowl, even as her fingers slipped from his shirt and she was forced to lie down again, not by the healer, but by her own cursed weakness.

He understood. He didn’t like it, but he understood.

* * *

“Has he eaten yet?”

“No. Sent his lunch back almost as soon as he got it.”

The stone was cold and unyielding. She listened, shoulders wedged into a niche under a shuttered lamp, leaving the space in shadow. The two guards were out of sight, down the hall to her right, and guarding the royal study.

“It’s gotten worse, then.”

“After losing so much, who can blame him? And then Dwalin showed back up…”

There was a grunt of agreement from the other guard. She felt a lurch in the region of her stomach and closed her eyes. “Showed back up.” Was that what she’d done? Like the bent hammer no one wants to use? The stray cat that hangs around the back door?

“I heard she won’t even talk to him.”

Another lurch. “Won’t.” Surely Thorin understood the truth. A door squeaked open.

“You two can gossip elsewhere.” If there’s ever been a clearer dismissal, she couldn’t remember it. The guards left without offering an argument. She watched them stride into her field of vision and back out again. She wanted to hurt them for abandoning their posts without a fight. Where was their loyalty when he needed it?

The dwarrowdam didn’t realize how angry and ragged her breathing had become until a third figure stepped into the slice of hall she could see. Thorin’s face registered a flicker of surprised, then became blank.

“What are you doing here?” Flat expression. Flat tone. She briefly considered lying, but knew it would do no good. He would know anyway--probably knew already. Scarred hands lifted to sign the answer.

_Guarding. Hiding._

Thorin studied her for a long moment, and she wondered if he’d understood. Her Iglishmêk was still flawed at best, and many of the signs she used were modified, for use without her missing fingers. At length, though, the king sighed deeply through his nose.

“A lot of good you’ll do,” he muttered. “Come on.” He extended a hand to her, and after a slight hesitation, she took it, allowing him to help her to her feet.

Whether it was through sheer force of will or her frame was just that drastically reduced, she didn’t know. In any case, when he saw how unsteady she was on her feet, how her legs shook under her weight, Thorin actually picked her up. Resting across his broad, warm back, the dwarrowdam felt a curious mixture of shame and comfort. To be so weak that the return trip was unmanageable burned in her throat like hot coals. Still, it was almost worth it, just for the feeling of safety that came of Thorin’s stubborn strength.

She didn’t get another chance to communicate with him until he set her down on her bed. By then, the healer was scolding her something fierce for “wandering off.” Thorin left without giving her the chance to say much, and if he’d seen her hasty signs, he didn’t acknowledge them.

* * *

_Why King mad?_  Her fingers fumbled through the words, and the dwarrowdam made a face. She didn't like the necessity of using her hands at all, but knew it was a good thing, all in all. Her dexterity would suffer quite enough from missing fingers without her helping it along by refusing to train herself to use her hands again. Balin glanced at Kili, who was attempting to fold a piece of paper into a dragon, and then at Fili, who was determinedly sharpening a knife. The weapon was too big for him, if truth be told, but the dwarrow was being very meticulous about his task.

_King grieves,_ Balin signed back, his eyes still on their young companions. Thorin's nephews had taken it upon themselves to "keep the Captain company." They couldn't be expected to understand this. The injured dwarf shook her head slightly.

_I live. Why grieve for living?_  She could understand if he was just sad, but he seemed to be actively avoiding her, and she wasn't sure why. Had she insulted him by her absence? Did he believe that her return had been contrived to make his life more difficult? Again, her brother hesitated, and she wondered if he wasn't trying to keep things from her.

_No feel you. Thought you dead. Ganith left.Thought Ganith dead, too._

She considered this for a moment. It must have been quite a shock, believing her among his ancestors in the Halls of Mandos, and then finding her not only alive, but invisible to his mental senses that ought to have told him that she was nearby. But that still didn't explain it.

_King not speak me. Why?_

Balin gave her a pitying look and shook his head. She noticed grey in his hair where she didn't think there'd been any before. Whatever it was, either Balin couldn't tell her or didn't know. Neither option was at all comforting. The sober mood was broken by Kili, who sat up with a very serious frown on his beardless face and held up his paper creation.

"Does this look like a dragon to you?"

* * *

Heavy.

Stifling, inflexible, unyielding.

Like stone, but not half so easy to work with.

But what else was there to do, when one was alone and too weak and tired to stray much farther than a level up or down? A level down was full of guest quarters, and she’d no desire to see any new faces. A level up was the royal wing. Thus she found herself time and again, settled in the niche near the study, doing the only thing that was worthwhile in her ruined life--guarding the king. But even that couldn’t hold her in thrall for long, and so her attention turned back to the mental barrier that trapped her in her own mind and was, as far as she could tell, of her own making.

She hated it.

The phenomenon wasn’t unheard of, though. Balin had asked the Record Keeper to look for anything that might help, and she’d turned up several similar incidents in Erebor’s history. Dwarves who’d lost their dragons or mates were noted to have shut down all bonds, even the deepest ones. One in particular, an ambassador of some sort from somewhere, had been horribly betrayed by his mate, and had been unable to form any new bonds after that.

So it was all Azog’s fault.

Within the confines of her own mind, the dwarrowdam screamed curses at the Pale Orc and threw herself at the thick, layered wall, smooth and hard as polished mithril. The time in the arena, the herculean effort it had taken to lift the barrier--she feared that had been her last chance. Not even Ganith could reach her now, though she occasionally felt him trying. But she _could_ feel him. That meant that there was a chance. Right?

Hours were spent in various states of discomfort and frustration. She’d already discovered that her niche was getting uncomfortably tight as her body healed and restored some of what had been lost. Shifting against the stone, she wondered where she would go when she couldn’t sit here anymore. Wrestling with this invisible barrier that locked her inside her mutilated mind was very much the same as squeezing through a hole much too small for her. The whole effect left her feeling distinctly claustrophobic. She was about to give up, when she heard something, very distantly.

_:Little Warrior?:_

The words didn’t hurt, and she felt a rush of hope. Thrashing and struggling made no more difference to the barrier than the flailing of a baby dragon made to the stone he lay on. She had found, however, that she could make some progress if she forced her entire being more or less _under_ the thick wall. The feeling of being squeezed intensified, turned to pain, and she pushed as hard as she could.

_:Ganith!:_

_:Heart-sister!:_ The drake’s enormous presence seemed to engulf her as, at long last, she broke free. Her brain felt like mush and if a mind could bruise, hers had. Every thought, every brush of Ganith’s mind made her head ache, but she ignored it. She was free.

For several long minutes, there were no words between dragon and rider. Emotions and information and reassurance and comfort flowed freely between them for the first time in ages. All the pain and fear and worry and anger and discomfort were met from both sides by assurances of love and devotion. No, she hadn’t been blocking him out. Of course he’d tried to get to her sooner. Would he be able to see her soon? Was he hurt?

At length, when each was reassured that the other was alright and would still be alive when she was well enough to visit the eyries, the world seemed a much kinder place.

_:They tell me you’re sick. There was bad stuff in the water, and you were drinking it for a long time.:_ His words reminded her of the brown, brackish water she’d had in Moria, and how rare it had been amid the beatings and torments. She shuddered.

_:I guess I must be. I’m still so weak I can’t hardly make it farther than Thorin’s study.:_

_:He is a good king.:_

_:I know.:_ She paused, relaxing considerably now that she had her Ganith back. Being all alone inside her own head and unable to escape was the worst torment she could possibly imagine. Much worse than these scars that would eventually fade. _:What about the halfling? He helped me escape. I owe him a great debt.:_ A life-debt, as it happened, and she wouldn’t just ignore it.

_:He refused to come. You tried to bring him with us, and he said he had to stay.:_

_:But why did he have to stay? It doesn’t make any sense.:_

_:I don’t know. He didn’t explain to me why he had to stay. He only said that it was important that I be ready to leave that night.:_

The dwarf lifted her head as though to look at the drake, though she wasn’t anywhere near close enough to see him. Still curled in her niche in the royal wing, she stared at the opposite wall in surprise. _:He told you to be ready?:_

It was one thing for a dragon to speak with one who wasn’t his rider--another entirely for the process to reverse itself. Dragons were immensely powerful creatures and could touch any mind they liked. No rider that she knew of had the strength of will and mind to touch a dragon’s thoughts without his express permission.

_:Yes.:_

This simple, matter-of-fact answer was just about as unhelpful as could be, but she couldn’t be too angry with Ganith. This was normal for him.

_:How? Why?:_

_:He wanted you to escape.:_

_:But why?:_

This time, there was a brief pause before he answered, as though he were considering how much to tell her. That in itself wasn’t all that odd. Ganith often kept some things from her, because he knew that she’d be able to figure them out on her own. This time, though, it felt different. As though he were trying to protect someone. The halfling?

_:It is not a good place to be. You would have helped others escape if you could.:_

She was going to tell him that she wouldn’t have helped someone else escape and then stayed behind for no good reason, but she was interrupted by a sudden burst of emotional turmoil almost directly in front of her. The dwarrowdam blinked, and realized she’d been staring at Thorin’s chest. He was looking at her with that same blank expression as he always did when he found her here, but now she could feel all the hurt and isolation he was internalizing. But why was her bond with him open, when she’d heard nothing of his pain from anyone else? Fili and Kili would have said something, surely, even if Balin might have kept quiet out of a polite regard for his privacy. But every time she’d seen the two young dwarrows, they had been more than happy to tell her stories about the mischief they made in the kitchen, about the litter of dragonets that had been born while she was gone, about Councilman Gofin’s daughter (who was apparently both very pretty and not worth spending time with, despite the amount of time they spent talking about her). Not a single mention of their uncle’s intense loneliness and pain.

Ganith provided the answer for her before she could ask him. _:You’ve been silent for weeks. Where’s the risk in showing your hurt to someone who never says anything back?:_

The dwarrowdam winced slightly. Did Thorin really think her that heartless? Or was he just counting on her shields to block out everything? She reached for his mind as she unfolded herself out of her niche.

_:Thorin?:_ This mental equivalent of knocking on his door was met with an immediate cessation of all emotional output. Surprise flickered across his face, but he didn’t answer right away. She searched for the right words, but she’d never really been good with what to say. That was Balin’s specialty. _:I don’t know how to fix this.:_ Ganith could doubtless hear her, but he kept blessedly quiet for the moment.

She could still feel echoes of his frustration and hurt in the silence that followed. At length, Thorin let his blue gaze slip away from her. _:You were dead. You never came back. What was I supposed to think, Dwal?:_

She felt a jolt and realized, like a swimmer surfacing for air after a long dive, that no one had called her by her name since her imprisonment. It was as though someone had given her back to herself. Standing now, Dwalin tipped her chin back slightly to look into Thorin’s eyes.

_:You have to trust me, Thorin. I always come back.:_

 


	4. Life-Debt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't expect me to KEEP updating this fast, but I wanted you to have a pretty present from me. :) Enjoy!

Dwalin stretched herself out on the floor, closing her eyes. Heat radiated through the smooth stone, polished by generations of dragonhide. This smoothness, this stone, was more comforting than most things she could think of. The only thing more comforting that came to mind was the heat of Ganith's enormous body at her back. His mind hovered over her own, relaxed and at peace. Nothing could reach her unless it went through him first, and there was close to _nothing_ that could get through a dragon's defenses. Here, she was safe. Here, nothing could disturb her. 

As though the thought itself were some sort of a cue, a sound of booted feet echoed through the brooding chamber. But for them, it was empty at the moment, as there were no eggs in need of incubation. Therefore, there was only one reason for someone to be here at all. They were looking for her. Dwalin sighed heavily through her nose. Not well enough to take on the full duties of a guard captain, but well enough to be pestered at any moment by whomever wished to see her. 

The dwarrowdam turned her head, pressing her cheek to the smooth stone so she could watch the approaching boots. Heavy. Metal-tipped. Worn and dirty. That didn't really tell her much. She was actually barefoot, herself. Having spent so long imprisoned in the mines without shoes, she found herself regarding them as uncomfortable and unwieldy, even if she stubbed her toes often. Only one of her toes was missing, which was a relief. It threw her balance off a little, but not enough to make things really difficult. 

"Captain." 

Someone to see her on official business, then. Dwalin sat up reluctantly, looking into the newcomer's face. Bant. She recalled his name, but not what business he was connected to. She gestured for him to continue.

"The supplies you requested have been packed into your drake's saddle." There was a mixture of envy and nervousness in the dwarf's gaze as he looked up at Ganith. Clearly, he wasn't one of those that had been chosen as a Rider. Possibly wasn't even capable of forming the bond. It was a pity that there were so many that were left without the companionship of a drake, but that was simply the way things were. 

 _Thanks._ The gesture was simple enough, and she dismissed him with a nod. After a moment Bant bowed and departed. 

 _:We leave soon, then?:_  

She jumped, tensing at the sound of Ganith's voice. She hadn't expected it, though she probably should have. Dwalin turned slightly to frown at the drake.

 _:Yes. What of it?:_  Her tone was somewhat more belligerent than she'd intended, and the dwarf realized belatedly that she was braced for a fight. Ganith was unlikely to be argumentative, but if he decided it was unwise to return to Moria, then there was no way she would be able to make the journey. After a beat of silence, she tried again. _:I owe the halfling a life-debt. I need to go back. He helped me escape. I wouldn't be able to call myself a Dwarf of Erebor if I left him to die in that hell-hole.:_

Ganith studied her for a long minute, his expression and mind unreadable. Enormous, multifaceted eyes swirled in gentle shades of blue and green indicating that he was, at least, not angry. Finally, he dipped his head slightly toward her.

 _:I understand. I had thought we would discuss a plan first. And... that you would tell the others that we go.:_  

This thought brought a wince to the dwarf's face. It was true that she'd been putting it off, but it wasn't because she was afraid they would protest. They couldn't stop her going any more than they could stop her breathing. But she didn't want to face their disappointment. Betrayal, even. Would they understand? Maybe.

 _:I'll talk to Balin.:_ He could tell the others.

 _:And Thorin.:_  

Another wince. _:I don't want to bother him.:_

 _:And Thorin,:_ Ganith insisted.

Dwalin sighed. _:Alright, alright. I'll talk to him. He won't be happy about it, though.:_  No one would be.

* * *

"Going back?" Balin was so startled, he responded out loud, his voice hoarse in the cool, dry Records Room. Dwalin shifted slightly, refusing to let her weakness show. She met his gaze, unwilling to look away.

 _:I have to, Brother. I owe the halfling a life-debt.:_  She noted the look mild panic that crossed Balin's face, and anticipated what it meant. _:I'll have Ganith with me this time. They won't catch me again.:_

 _:You can't go back, Sister! You're only just recovered, and we need you here. You're the captain of the guard.:_  They sounded like weak excuses, hardly more than a child's pleas between their minds. Balin's ink-stained hands were spread over the parchment in front of him, pinning it flat to the hardwood surface of his desk. He and Himlis, the Record Keeper, were hard at work filling sheaf after sheaf of parchment with the names of the Dwarves that now populated the crypts, many miles below the Mountain. It was a grueling task, but the names of the honored dead would not be forgotten by Erebor.

Himlis, a dark-haired female with a neatly-braided beard, eyed them for only a moment before lowering her head over her parchment once more. There was no danger of her recording their words, even if she'd been listening. It was simply not her way. 

 _:I can, Brother, and I will. I must. I will not have it said that Dwalin, daughter of Fundin, let a life-debt pass unpaid. That halfling had twice the courage and strength of many a Dwarf.:_  This said, she turned to go. She had delivered her message. Ganith, whose mind she felt closing in around her own as a living shield, seemed slightly disapproving. She tried to assure him that this was the way it had to be. That she had to be firm with Balin, otherwise he wouldn't accept the inevitable. Ganith didn't seem convinced. Her stride carried her swiftly away from the Records Room, but it wasn't nearly long enough before she was interrupted.

"Whaddya mean you're leaving?" A young voice startled her out of her reverie, and Dwalin stopped in her tracks to locate the source. Fili. He was carrying rolls of parchment, and she could tell by his expression that it was Balin that had just broadcast her announcement to everyone he was bonded to. Even the royal heirs, too young to be involved in this, really. The dwarrowdam sighed and made a gesture that was supposed to end the conversation as she stepped past Fili. This didn't concern him. 

"Wait! Captain! Dwalin!" The sound of parchment rolls hitting the floor was like the spurting rush of water over stone. A hand clamped over-zealously on her shoulder, and Dwalin tensed, fighting the urge to throw the hand off. Memories of orcs and battles played in her mind. "You can't go. We need you. Erebor needs you. _Thorin_  needs you. Please, don't leave."

 _Need leave,_ she signed impatiently, pulling away from him.

"But why?" Fili's tone, so much more openly pleading than Balin's, seemed to grate over her nerves. "We only just got you back!"

 _You no understand._  Her signs were becoming too sharp, and she knew it. It would do no one any good to know how easily irritated she was.

"Try me. I'm not a babe in arms, you know." 

That gave her pause. Dwalin paused to consider, not because Fili's words were compelling, but because he hadn't sounded defensive. Just... serious. Looking over him, she discovered (and this made her insides lurch uncomfortably) that Fili was nearly full-grown. With his patchy, youthful beard, he looked just like his uncle had, not many years before. Frerin. The reflection of the dead made Dwalin's jaw tighten. It was true, the new Heir of Durin was no longer the dwarrow she remembered. Perhaps he deserved an explanation.

_Owe life-debt. Need save one who saved me._

Fili shook his head slightly. The young dwarf seemed to be having some trouble processing this information, as though the idea of anyone saving Dwalin from anything was beyond his ability to grasp. But the concept of a life-debt was one that had been imbued to every dwarrow from birth, as inseparable from life as his mother's milk. 

"But... but couldn't you wait? I mean... Thorin needs you. Please don't leave."

 _King no need me._  Dwalin's signs were dismissive. Thorin had always been fine on his own. She was just a spare part. Unnecessary. She didn't even fill her station as guard captain.

"He _does_ need you. He... it was a different sort of grieving. Like he'd lost half of himself." Fili's voice had dropped to a somber almost whisper, and Dwalin stiffened slightly. It wasn't the first time she'd heard hints of others' suspicions, that she may have stolen the dwarf king's heart. That she was his One. The idea was, quite frankly, enough to break her out into a cold sweat. 

 _:Thorin is not my One.:_ She sent the message so powerfully that the dwarrow flinched. For a moment, she almost felt guilty. None of this was Fili's fault. He was just trying to do what he thought was best for his family. Anyone else would do the same in his place. 

"At least talk to him first. Please." The blond's fists were clenched and shaking. She wondered whether he was angry with her, or holding back tears. It was hard to tell. "Erebor needs you. And if you disappear again... if you leave... you might not come back."

A plaintive, frightened note had crept into his voice now, and Dwalin remembered that he was still just a lad. Not yet old enough to braid his beard, let alone take on the responsibilities of the Heir. She sighed and looked away.

 _I go talk to king,_ she signed. If Fili reacted, she didn't see it. Already, the dwarf was on her way down the hall, back the way she'd come. Ganith knew where Thorin was. He could guide her. It wasn't all that comforting, though, when she could feel that her drake agreed with with the dwarrow she was leaving behind. 

Frustration welled up in her chest, doing its best to drown out the fear she refused to acknowledge. She was replaceable. One of hundreds that might have died and eventually been buried. There wasn't a one of them that couldn't be done without. The jobs would be done by others, the needs filled by others. Erebor would be fine without her. But this train of thought seemed to lead directly to the apparently unavoidable conclusion that she wasn't coming back. That what waited for her in Moria wasn't a debt she could pay, but death. Dwalin's mind rebelled against that concept. She _would_ come back. Nothing would stop her, not even Azog himself. 

It was almost without noticing that she stepped into the nursery chamber, the floor and walls scored by tiny scratches and sharp black scorch-marks. There were two clutches represented, and one was new. That much was obvious by their size. Each hatchling was the size a newborn calf, cavorting about on spindly, unsteady legs and tumbling over one another. Two enormous females watched over the young, hot bellies pressed contentedly to the stone floor, keeping the chamber warm. There were twelve of these little ones, playing energetically together in the middle of the enormous room. The second, a much older group, had been Tsuth's first and only clutch. She had left them to go to battle with her Rider, and hadn't returned. They were almost a year old now, and easily as large as horses. Only three remained in the nursery. The others had chosen their Riders and moved into nests of their own. 

It was here that she found Thorin. It was something of a shock to see him seated on the floor, watching the hatchlings with the intensity of one contemplating a joy denied him. While two of the larger hatchlings were playing with the younger ones, batting at one another with their wings, the third had curled up beside the dwarf king. With her head resting on his lap, it was easy to see she was a runt, smaller than her siblings and sickly-looking. It shouldn't have been a surprise, considering Tsuth had been his, and this was the last he had of her. But did he honestly think he might be able to bond a second time? It wasn't unheard of, but certainly rare enough. Dwalin found herself hoping that he did. If any dwarf had ever deserved a second chance, it was Thorin. 

The king had noticed her by then, and lifted his gaze to meet hers, dark brows knitting unhappily above piercing eyes, as though she were interrupting something terribly important. 

 _I go back. Leave before evening watch._  She'd intended to mindspeak, but at the last moment, changed her mind. It wasn't cowardice, she told herself, if it was simply more convenient this way. Cowardice, however, was the name of the shame that burned in her throat like bile. 

Thorin's eyes widened slightly. The one hand that had rested on the runt's neck spines tensed slightly, and the little drake woke with a squeak of protest. Dwalin could feel him searching for an opening in her guard, wanting to speak directly through their bond, and resented the fact that Ganith was letting him through.

 _:Why? You've no reason to leave us now. Moria is lost. One more death won't change that.:_  

The intensity of his voice in her mind burned, but not like Azog's had. It didn't tear and ache and make it hard to think. It felt more like the words themselves held the burning, as though it came from his mind, and was only faintly echoed in hers. 

_:I have to. I owe a debt, and I won't just forget that.:_

The runt lifted her pale head, seeming to frown at the pair of them. This didn't have the effect she wanted. Thorin, rather than paying attention to her, got to his feet. His gaze was fixed unwaveringly on Dwalin's face, as though he expected to read something there that would dispel the feeling of betrayal clearly reverberating through their bond. 

 _:And is this debt greater than your promise?:_  

Dwalin tensed, hands balling into uneven fists. _:I promised I would come back. I didn't promise to stay.:_  She instantly regretted the words. As true as they were, it wasn't what she'd meant to say. Already, she could feel Thorin's reaction. Anger. Pain.

 _:Thorin,:_  she tried again, taking a step forward, _:he saved my life. I have to go back. What sort of dwarf would I be, what would I be worth, if I let that halfling die in my place?:_  He was shaking his head slightly, and it was more than a little surprising for her to see confusion on his grim face. 

 _:You were going to stay. You were going to help me.:_  Thorin's mind seemed to advance on her, trying to bring her closer. _:You have to stay.:_  It sounded like a command, but it had little of the dwarf's usual power behind it. Dwalin scrubbed her hands over the rough fabric of her tunic, a claustrophobic feeling beginning to gnaw at her insides.

_:I can't stay.:_

_:You have to. I need you.:_

_:NO. I'm not your One.:_

Dwalin turned away, struggling to breathe regularly. She felt Thorin flinch, though she couldn't see him. 

_:Dwal...:_

She ignored him. Unable to properly block him out, she just started walking, followed by the eyes of the adult females. It felt like they were accusing her, though a part of her mind rationally explained that was very unlikely. She wanted to escape. To get out. To fly. She called to Ganith, and the drake reluctantly responded, clearly thinking that this wasn’t at all how she had been meant to handle the situation. He didn’t however, shield her mind. Instead, he merely joined her. 

 _:Dwal, please. Wait.:_  It wasn’t Thorin’s voice. At least, not Thorin’s voice as she remembered it. He sounded nearly panicked, and behind her, she could hear his boots hit the stone unevenly, off balance because of the runt that had been clinging to his leg. She heard the hatchling chirp unhappily, and Thorin’s footsteps falter. Dwalin sped up. She knew he could feel the rampant tension clawing at her insides. There was no way she could hide it. She had no shields. 

When his hand caught her arm, the dwarrowdam felt herself break out in a sweat. This wasn’t the way this was supposed to work. He should have been angry with her. Or was it just his new habit to be angry with her when he had no reason to be and to be frightened when he should have been angry? Nothing made sense. She tried to pull away, but he was too strong. She was too weak. Frustration. Anger. Rage. Better than the alternative. Dwalin ripped her arm away from him, nearly dislocating her own shoulder. He let her slip away, only to grab her again. 

 _:Dwal, listen to me. I can’t let you leave again. I don’t know if I can live with it if you don’t come back.:_  

She remembered her own words, and they rang mockingly in her mind now. ‘You have to trust me, Thorin. I always come back.’ She had been strong where he was weak. Now she wished she could crawl into a mine and die. 

 _:I’m not what you think I am,:_  she told him desperately, still trying to get away, though not as violently, now that her arm hurt. _:I’m just a guard. I’m just a soldier.:_  Mental images of cells and chains and arenas flashed through her mind and frustration turned to mild panic. _:I’m not your One.:_  

This time, the words penetrated. Thorin’s presence seemed to waver, almost tremble, and then recede. It was almost as though his mind were shrinking. Dwalin found herself suddenly freed from his limp grasp, sweating and shaking. 

 _:I can’t be that for you. I’m sorry.:_  She turned and ran. 

Legs shook, lungs ached, eyes burned. She wanted to throttle something. She wanted to hide under a rock and stay there until she'd forgotten the world, and it had forgotten her.

 _:Little Warrior.:_  Ganith's voice was stern, but she didn't listen to him. She didn't want to hear how she'd bungled it, how she should give him another chance, how she shouldn't just leave. With the way Ganith was disapproving currently, she doubted they would be getting off the ground before sundown anyway. She couldn't force him. 

At some point, her legs simply refused to carry her any further. The stone around her echoed mockingly with the sound of her own strained breathing. Below, voices reached for her. Ganith. Thorin. Fili. Balin. She closed her eyes. On the one hand, she didn't want to block them out, didn't want to be alone. On the other, she wanted them all to leave her alone. 

Yelling and throwing loose stones would do her no good. Lying here and trying to hide between boulder and wall in an empty eyrie would do no good either. When Ganith's heavy tread announced his approach, Dwalin was deeply involved in a series of exercises. When one doesn't wish to think, one should fill one's mind so completely with something that there simply isn't room for anything else. Too exhausted from running to do strength exercises, she sat cross-legged on the stone and forced her hands through a series of signs, concentrating ruthlessly on going through her entire vocabulary--every word, phrase and name she'd ever been taught in Iglishmêk. 

 _:Little Warrior. Running away from your problems will not make them scurry back into their holes.:_  His disappointed tone threatened to break her concentration. She didn't want to talk about it. Didn't want to face it. But avoiding the answers that pressed at the back of her mind would only prove him right, and how intolerable would he be then?

 _:It is not my duty to tend to Thorin's injured feelings or dreams of romance. I am his bodyguard. Nothing more.:_  And yet, even this hurt. Ganith waited patiently. _:This is not my place, Ganith. He needs someone who is whole. Not me. We leave at first light. I have a debt to repay.:_  If she could have closed her shields against him, she would have. But not only was she frightened of shutting herself off again, but whatever shields she'd once possessed seemed to have dissolved into nothing. 

 _:At least admit that you_  want _it, Small One. There is no shame in desiring love.:_  Ganith lowered himself to the stone, lying near enough to the boulder his Rider sheltered behind that she could feel the heat radiating from his body. 

There was a long pause, while Dwalin stared unforgivingly at her own mutilated hands. _:I don't. Not from him.:_


End file.
